Project Jefferson

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For the cancelled game, see Baldur's Gate III: The Black Hound.

Project Jefferson was a

genetically modified bacteria. The program's legal status under the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) is disputed.[citation needed
]

History

The operation

Project Jefferson began in 1997

commercially available U.S. anthrax vaccine.[2]

Reportage

The project was disclosed in a September 4, 2001 article in

William J. Broad collaborated to write the article.[3] It is presumed that the reporters had knowledge of the program for at least several months; shortly after the article appeared they published a book that detailed the story further.[3] The 2001 book, Germs: Biological Weapons and America's Secret War, and the article are the only publicly available sources[citation needed] detailing Project Jefferson and its sister projects, Bacchus and Clear Vision.[3]

Legality

Project Jefferson was operated by the

Bush administrations that the project, and its sisters, were legal, several international legal scholars disagreed.[2]

Notable was the fact that the clandestine program was omitted from BWC confidence-building measure (CBM) declarations.[2] These measures were introduced to the BWC in 1986 and 1991 to strengthen the treaty, the U.S. had long been a proponent of their value and some asserted[who?] that these tests damaged American credibility.[2] U.S. desire to keep such programs secret was, according to Bush administration officials, a "significant reason" that Bush rejected a draft agreement signed by 143 nations to strengthen the BWC.[4]

References

  1. ^ "Pentagon Press Briefing on Biological Weapons Research".
  2. ^
    Tucker, Jonathan B. "Biological Threat Assessment: Is the Cure Worse Than the Disease? Archived 2008-05-17 at the Wayback Machine
    ", Arms Control Today, October 2004. Retrieved January 6, 2009.
  3. ^
    ISBN 0415422345
    ).
  4. ^
    Broad, William J. "U.S. Germ Warfare Research Pushes Treaty Limits", The New York Times
    , September 4, 2001. Retrieved January 6, 2009.

Further reading
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